Introduction to American Studies

Settling the West

What to do with Federal lands? When new states were formed, most of the

land remained under Federal control Even today this is the case (Nevada)

Pre-Civil War During the Civil War

Homestead Act of 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862

The federal government controls 86.1 percent of the land

Of the remaining 13.9 percent, 11.5 percent is privately owned, 1.6 percent tribal, 0.4 percent local, and 0.4 percent state government owned

Black areas indicate federal owned or controlled lands

Township and Range system

Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787

Township consists of 36 sections

Each section is 1 square mile or 640 acres – 259 hectares

Sections divided in quarter sections (160 acres/65 ha)

1 section left for local schooling

60” = 1524 mm 40” = 1016 mm 20” = 508 mm Minimum

required for maize is 20”

Desert is defined as less than 500 mm annually

Average for ČR is 693 mm

Advertising for homesteads

This poster alerted many to inexpensive land for sale in Iowa and Nebraska

CREDIT: "Millions of Acres. Iowa and Nebraska. Land for Sale on 10 years Credit by the Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co. at 6 per ct Interest and Low Prices . . . " Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Co., 1872. An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, American Memory collections, Library of Congress.

The High Prairie – Lower Brule Indian Reservation (South Dakota)

The reality of homesteading

CREDIT: McCarthy, John, photographer. "John Bakken Sod House, Milton, North Dakota." Circa 1895. The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections, American Memory collections, Library of Congress.

A Nebraska homesteading family, 1880s

A sod house (circa 1880-1900)

Life in on the Plains

Selling railroad lands

A History of the Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)